Polson Rural Fire board considers fee for wreck-response

POLSON — Polson Rural Fire Chief John Fairchild is hoping a new charge for fire response to car wrecks requiring clean up and/or vehicle extraction could generate revenue for the department’s dwindling budget.

“We are not trying to charge them extra on top of what they pay,” Fairchild said. “We’re trying to collect for a service nobody pays for right now, except through the budget.”

Letters to the editor on the topic have streamed into the Leader office after the Polson Rural Fire Board voted to have a Missoula-based reimbursement services company, Sole Stone, create a contract for board trustees to examine.

No decision about implementing the service charge has been made yet, Fairchild added, but the letters and comments received have been negative.

While residents of the Polson rural fire district do pay taxes, Fairchild said that cost covers the possibility of a structure fire. Residents do pay a certain number of mills for operational expenses and truck expenses, a measure voted on in May 2006, but no cost is incurred to drivers who are involved in wrecks within the district.

“We are only sent out if there is oil or antifreeze or liquids leaking from the vehicle or if there is entrapment,” Fairchild said.

In a letter to the Leader in the Dec. 16 edition, members of the Fire Board wrote “the majority of people utilizing this service are from outside the community and contribute nothing toward [costs].”

Looking at the costs charged by Recovery USA, a company that specializes in auto reimbursements, the charges could be $435 to $2,200, but Fairchild said it’s likely the costs would be lower. The initial level, $435, would cover a basic response, while costs would increase depending on if clean up was required or if Jaws of Life were deployed to cut out a trapped occupant. Fairchild is hoping he will have some discretion over whom to charge but said the issue will ultimately be up to the rural fire board.

“The fee scale has yet to be determined but I have no intention of billing someone who is not at fault [in the wreck],” Fairchild said.

Two other letters in last week’s Leader called it a “stealth tax,” “a hidden tax” and “double dipping” but Fairchild said it’s transparent and bills are only sent to people involved in accidents, not an extra tax on all residents. When the Fire Board tasked Fairchild with finding ways to supplement the district’s $121,000 budget, this was one of his ideas.

“We used to charge for extractions but ended that in the late 1990s,” Fairchild said. “We had to collect then so it became a burden on us but now we’ll use Sole Stone.”

Sole Stone would charge eight percent of the still-unknown charges, Fairchild said. As of Nov. 30, 45 accidents had occurred in the Polson area: 15 within city limits and 30 in the rural fire district.

Fairchild said using the lowest mitigation rate used by Recovery USA, $435, his department would have received $6,525 within city limits and $13,050 for the rural, minus the eight percent fee.

The money could be important as Fairchild said his budget will take a hit in 2015 as ownership of Kerr Dam reverts to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, depriving him of more than $30,000 in property tax fees PPL Montana pays towards his rural fire budget.

“When I lose $30-40,000, that’s a huge whack to my budget,” Fairchild said.

Fairchild said the city of Ronan has a similar reimbursement service and Polson mayor Pat DeVries said at a recent city commission meeting that she would like the city to adopt whatever policy the rural fire district approves.

“People are up in arms about double taxation, but we aren’t charging for something we already pay a tax on,” Fairchild said.